2D Artist

2DARTISTMAG.COM2DARTIST MAGAZINE | Creating a vibrant character conceptdidn’t need to be perfect because I wouldend up painting over a lot of it anyway.Being able to create neat line-work is alwaysgoing to be a useful skill, however. If youstruggle with your lines and are determinedto get really neat line-work into your drawing,Lazy Nezumi is a great Photoshop pluginthat can help you smooth out lines.Once I had finished the line-work I applied afilter (Filter > Other > Maximum). Doing thisexpanded the negative space in my drawingand as a result thinned out the lines. This filteralso kept the thickness where the lines joined,which gave them a more organic look.03Masking out: Once I had all thedetails I wanted in the image plannedout, I created a mask. Using a mask helpedto make my initial lighting and coloring niceand easy. This basically just meant that Iwas coloring everything that was behind thelines on a new layer. It was easiest to do thisusing the Lasso tool and a standard roundbrush with the Opacity Jitter turned off.I made sure that I kept the mask as neatas possible and that the mask was filledwith the Opacity set to 100%. If any partof it was not at 100% I could have run intosome problems, as applying any color orgradient over the mask would only apply towhatever the mask’s opacity was set to.04Using clipping masks: Now thatthe lines and masking in were done,I started to block in my colors and basiclighting using a new layer that had beenset as a clipping mask onto the mask layer.The mask I had created defined the visibleboundaries for any clipping masks I appliedto it. Remember, you can have multipleclipping masks applied to the same layer.To create a clipping mask I had to make a newlayer which sat directly above the mask layerin the Layers tab. Then I simply held down theAlt key and allowed my cursor to hover directlybetween the mask layer and the new layer. Atiny symbol of an arrow with a square appeared,and then I simply clicked to apply the clippingmask. When I painted on the clipping masklayer it would then only paint within the mask.The drawing was masked out with the Lasso tool before the lightingand color were set``````Basic colors and lighting were painted onto the mask layerusing clipping masks